fighting damien

Please bear with me for this one.

Pop and I talk at Casey’s wedding as good friend, Stacy, watches the interaction

This past March 7th, Patti’s birthday, her father, Andy, died after a three plus-year battle with esophageal cancer. He was 88. We were both diagnosed with our respective cancers on the same day in September 2010. He went through painful radiation and chemotherapy.

At his funeral ceremony in Florida, I mentioned that I had known my father for 30 years. He died of a heart attack at 56, when I was 30. I remember just after my father’s funeral, I was tucking my oldest daughter, Carrie, who was 3, into bed that night. I tried to explain that my Dad had died and he would not be with us, except in our memories. The concept of death was lost on her. She said, “Daddy, don’t worry. Grandpa is just driving around town in his Datsun.” Well, my Dad didn’t have a Datsun, but I smiled at Carrie’s statement and never forgot it.

Patti and I have been married 29 years, so I knew Andy about the same amount of time that I knew my own father. At the ceremony, I mentioned that my dad taught me the things that I needed to know to prepare for a successful life … and that, for the last 30 years, Andy was there to gently help me execute those principles, or provide an opinion of some sort. I became his third son, after Bill and Jim, when I married his daughter in 1985.

I was not what he and Virginia expected. They were strong Seventh-Day Adventists and believed hopefully that their daughter would stay within the flock. At the time, I was not much of a churchgoer. But Patti’s brother, Jim, introduced us and, for me, it was love at first sight. Patti, on the other hand, needed convincing. It became my mission in life and Pop watched patiently as our romance blossomed.

After we married, Pop and Virginia (Mom) were very accepting and always there for the small and large events we experienced, birthdays, anniversaries, births, etc., regardless of where we lived at the time. We played a lot of golf together and that was pure joy. I would ask him what he shot for each hole. In turn, he would ask me what I had scored on the hole and often replied that he had the same score.  One time I told him that I had shot a nine on a hole and that ended that practice.

I don’t ever remember losing my temper with him. His presence commanded respect no matter what. And, I also never remember Pop ever telling me “I had to do this or that.”

I loved him dearly and was so thankful to have him in my life to celebrate those things that a man wants to share with another man, and I would not have been able to enjoy with my dad’s early passing. He always answered any questions I asked with tenderness and respect.

Paul Newman as the stage manager in Our Town

For the last several years I carried a copy of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town wherever we moved. Since my mother had introduced me to this book many years before I ever met Patti, it had become a favorite of mine. The simple story of everyday small-town life with simple characters experiencing uniform joys and immediate dilemmas that affect us all resonated with me every time I picked up the book. And over the years, I had regarded Pop easily and regularly as the stage manager, a main character in the book. Within the family Pop had that simple talent of bringing things together, many times without you realizing it. He was the quintessential stage manager. His observations were keen and his pronouncements were true.

I had kept the book for many years because I thought that when he passed, I would be able to provide a quote from the book that summed up the tremendous impact he had on my life. And, it didn’t hurt that my favorite actor, Paul Newman, played the stage manager in one of the last productions of Our Town on Broadway.

But when the time came, I passed on Our Town and focused on the impact of his loss on his family and friends.

But for me, Pop will always be the stage manager every time I pick up Our Town. One of the messages the stage manager says to the audience I can very easily hear Pop sharing with anyone who would listen:

“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars … everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

What Pop knew was that a life in the Lord is eternal. Pop, we will meet again and there will be no tears, only love, joy and eternal happiness, and then we can read Our Town together as we drive around in a Datsun!